El Salvador’s Chivo Bitcoin App Has Lost 99% of Customers & ATM Booths Are Now ‘Empty’

A new report from El Diario de Hoy, one of El Salvador’s leading media providers, has found major discrepancies between actual Bitcoin remittances in the country versus what the government claims.

While El Salvador’s government claims Bitcoin has created a mega-tourism boom, and issued in a wave of prosperity as “millions switch to using Bitcoin’, the blockchain shows a totally different story.

Under 1% of remittances made to El Salvador make use of the state-operated Chivo app and wallet — and bitcoin ATM booths in the nation are “empty” less than a year after their launch. A reality that many Bitcoiners wish weren’t the case, as it confirms that citizens just aren’t interested in using it as a payment method.

The report quotes data from the Central Reserve Bank that shows that between September 2021 and June 2022, USD 120.46 million entered the country via crypto wallets. That represents just 1.8% of the USD 6.4 billion total remittances sent to the nation — mostly from overseas-based Salvadorans — in the same period.

The figures also show that USD 29.68 million was remitted in BTC via the crypto wallets in October 2021 — one month after bitcoin was adopted as legal tender in El Salvador. Since then, however, senders…